News

While it’s been almost 8 years since Sub Pop released The Shepherd’s Dog, the last record that we worked with Iron & Wine on, we remain huge admirers of the work of Sam Beam. With the release of ArchiveSeries Vol. No. 1, we decided to compile a playlist that we’re calling “A Beginner’s Guide to Iron & Wine” to introduce/reacquaint fans to the evocative and beautiful sound of I&W.

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Daughn Gibson’s Carnation will be available on CD / LP / DL June 1st in Europe, June 2nd in North America and June 8th in the UK from Sub Pop. The
album, featuring the highlights “Shatter You Through,” “Bled to Death,”
“It Wants Everything,” was co-produced by Gibson and Randall Dunn
(Earth, Sunn O))), Tim Hecker), recorded at Avast Studios in Seattle,
Washington and mastered by Jason Ward at Chicago Mastering. The album
features guest appearances from composer/violinist to Eyvind Kang
(string arrangements), renowned studio drummer Matt Chamberlain, as well
as Gibson’s long-standing musical conspirator, Jim Elkington.
Additional contributions include: Steve Moore (Piano, Trombone,
Keyboards and Synths); Milky Burgess, Paul Wegman, and Jer Rouse
(Guitars); Skerik (Saxophone); and Jay Kardong (Pedal Steel). Carnation is the follow up to Me Moan, his Sub Pop debut. Please find a complete tracklisting below.

You can now listen to the lead single, “Shatter You Through” via Stereogum, who says of the track: “As odd as anything he’s committed to tape, but it’s also his most instantly appealing single”(see premiere March 12th).”

Pre-orders of Carnation are available through Sub Pop Mega Mart, iTunes, Amazon and Bandcamp. Fans who purchase the album from megamart.subpop.com
will receive the Loser Edition on white, black and blue swirl colored
vinyl (while supplies last). There will also be new T-shirt design,
available individually and as part of a bundle with purchase of Carnation.

About Daughn Gibson’s Carnation:
Daughn Gibson of Carlisle, PA is a singer, songwriter and musician possessed of a singular and strange vision. Carnation
is the latest exhilarating and dark embodiment of that vision. It’s
also his third album. It’s an album that’s more elegant and
sophisticated than anything he’s done to date, and which sees the
elements of country music, more prominent on his past records (the 2012
release All Hell on the White Denim label and Sub Pop’s 2013 release of Me Moan), undone by ambient textures and sounds to extraordinary effect.

Shot through with a deep sensuality, Carnation is a high-wire
balancing act, at times sexual, emotionally intense and comforting. The
album features Daughn’s strongest songwriting yet, with lyrical subject
matter that shares a kinship with writers Raymond Carver and Donald Ray
Pollack. The music here combines with those lyrics to widescreen effect,
and Carnation feels filmic in its execution: It evokes, and in
many ways pays homage to, the works of Tim Burton, Pier Paulo Pasolini,
and John Waters.

Carnation’s most pervasive theme might best be described as the
chaos of circumstance and the 11 tracks here tell related stories. In
“Bled to Death,” Daughn passes away and laments the cruel hand dragging
him back to earth. On “Daddy I Cut My Hair,” a young man recently
released from a mental health facility desperately searches for sexual
intimacy. “A Rope Ain’t Enough” follows the story of an ambivalent man
suddenly awaking to the disease of masculinity, and formulating a plan
to eradicate it. “It Wants Everything” is written from the point of view
of a drunk and belligerent “jester of circumstance”. Then there’s the
addictive lead single, “Shatter You Through,” which happens to detail a
moment of peaceful sleep broken by the alarm clock toll of dread and
sadness, but proves to be one hell of an earworm (read more at Sub Pop).

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We here at Sub Pop Records love few things more than Record Store Day. On Saturday, April 18th, 2015
aka Record Store Day, we will release two very limited (and
potentially, for you) anticipated efforts: The self-titled LP from the
Alan Bishop-led Koes Barat and a heart-shaped single from Father John
Misty.

Father John Misty’s “I Loved You, Honeybee” 7” Single:
Father John Misty presents a lovely, alternate version of the title track of his latest album, I Love You, Honeybear,
along with a new, exclusive B-side, truthfully-entitled “I’ve Never
Been a Woman,” on a red-colored, heart-shaped 7” in a 10” sleeve. This
release is exclusive to Record Store Day, and it is limited to 5,700
copies worldwide.

Koes Barat Koes Barat LP:
In 2010, Sun City Girls legend Alan Bishop asserted his fandom of
Indonesian ‘60s/’70s pop legends Koes Bersaudara (aka Koes Plus) with
two archival releases on his and Hisham Mayet’s Sublime Frequencies
label. But that wasn’t enough. Feeling an overwhelming urge to interpret
Koes tunes, Bishop recorded Koes Barat in less than a week of
sessions with some of his favorite musicians and producer Randall Dunn
(Sunn O))), Marisa Nadler). The result is the most immediate, fun collection that the prolific Bishop has ever led. This album is a Record Store Day exclusive, limited to 3,800 worldwide.

More About Record Store Day:
This is a day for the people who make up the world of the record
store—the staff, the customers, and the artists—to come together and
celebrate the unique culture of a record store and the special role
these independently owned stores play in their communities. Special
vinyl and CD releases and various promotional products are made
exclusively for the day and hundreds of artists in the United States and
in various countries across the globe make special appearances and
performances. Festivities include performances, cook-outs, body
painting, meet & greets with artists, parades, djs spinning records
and on and on. Metallica officially kicked off Record Store Day at
Rasputin Music in San Francisco on April 19, 2008 and Record Store Day
is now celebrated the third Saturday every April.http://www.recordstoreday.com/Home

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It has been suggested in some quarters that it might be interesting for some moderate percentage of the 3-4 people who accidentally read this column to learn what a typical day is like here at Sub Pop, figuratively buried up to our necks in the musty magic of the music industry. And so…

Hello and welcome to another exciting day at Sub Pop Records!

Here in the professional music business, many days kick off with a bracing round of apologies. On the best of these days, this involves simple explanations of the previous night’s not altogether thoroughly considered words and actions (first recalled, on waking, in an experience we in the industry refer to as a “shame spiral”). The likelihood of this scenario increases significantly during music festivals, conferences, conventions, and the like. On the more challenging of these days, the apologies are in response to some real shortcoming like, say, an unforeseeable manufacturing mistake. Happily, we’re an independent record label and so no one seems to really expect us to know what we’re doing, and we’re regularly allowed, or even encouraged, to try again.

Apologies made, we confront the real business end of the music business and read through SoundScan reports, radio charts, relevant media features and reviews, trending hashtags (whatever the hell those are), maybe a little bit of D-Listed or Lefsetz. Then, depending on the results of all that, we either inch closer to or temporarily a little farther away from the great, yawning chasm of irrelevance that surely awaits us all. The kids are forever coming up from behind and that’s, for real, the good news.

Then, we just dick around for 20-40 minutes. No use trying to make that into something it’s not.

At some point during the day, we all listen to music. This is both our great privilege as people with ears and an interest in art and the world around us, and our professional duty as music industry professionals. New music from the exceptionally talented roster of artists currently suffering through long and punishingly unfair recording agreements with Sub Pop is always a source of great and sincere joy. New music from friends, distant relatives, friends of distant relatives, distant relatives of friends, and actual, categorical strangers is sometimes a source of great joy and more often a source of a great need for new ways to say, “It’s not you, it’s us. Please continue to D it right in the Y.”

As with many employed people we too find time to research anagrams and abbreviations specific to our industry: DMA (“designated market area” or “dugong mouth anus”?), I/O (“initial offering” or “irritated orifice”?), SRLP (“suggested retail list price” or “slurp”?). And others, probably. I feel confident there are others. And, same as you, we look for business opportunities which might correlate with personal travel interests. The 2015 Bananada Festival in Goiania, Brazil will feature both King Tuff and J Mascis! The line-up for the ATP in Iceland in July has clipping., Mudhoney, and a whole bunch of great bands who are not on Sub Pop! We would like to turn these opportunities yes!

There’s also the matter of responding to bulk/spam email, with special attention to those that seem most real or demanding (inclusion in an upcoming edition of Who’s Who; invitations to exclusive conferences of top, professional industry leaders; good news which requires immediate response regarding small business award presented by extremely vague and heretofore unknown organization (named using the same approach as local medical marijuana dispensaries (ex.: Northwest Medical Life Improvement Solutions Partners and Chillax-eria)).

And, at some point each day, we spend approximately zero time investigating the appropriate marketing approach to “Millennials.” Conversely, each year we spend significant time reading through and being deeply inspired and encouraged about the future by the Sub Pop Loser Scholarship applications of this same heavily-targeted generation.

There’s also an awful lot of reading and responding to email. There’s a fair amount of meeting together in various groups with the dedicated, talented and hard-working staff here, whose combined creativity and persistent effort on behalf of the artists we represent, and in support of one another, is a consistent and for-fucking-real marvel to me. Alongside the clear and present genius of the bands, comedians and jugglers we’re lucky enough to work with, the improbable longevity of this particular medium-sized record label should be credited to each of them. And I’m grateful to find myself amongst them every goddamned day.